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One bid was received by the county for its exclusive contract for collection, transportation and disposal of solid waste in the cities and unincorporated areas of Logan County. The sealed bid, which was from Scott Waste Services, LLC, was opened Tuesday at the fiscal court meeting by Judge Executive Logan Chick. Scott Waste is the company who currently provides residential and commercial trash pickup services in the county and four cities of Adairville, Auburn, Lewisburg and Russellville.

Magistrates tabled making a decision on the future contract, to allow more time to read through the proposal. They expect to bring a decision back at the next court meeting in two weeks.

Judge Chick said in thumbing through the document, it sounded pretty fair. This contract will also include curbside recycling for those who take the residential waste service.

The plan to bid out a future contract for the county and four cities began over a year ago after the proven success of a pilot program the county launched with the help of Scott Waste. The pilot program offered curbside co-mingling recycling for 350 plus customers. The program was very successful, prompting Magistrate Thomas Bouldin to push for the recycling to be offered to everyone at no to little additional cost. The best way to do that and get a competitive price was to bid out a future solid waste agreement that would include the unincorporated areas of the county and the four cities.

Scott Waste stepped up saying they would offer the recycling, if they could have a shot at bidding for the county and four cities’ business for a lengthy future agreement.

The way it is contracted now is Adairville, Auburn and Lewisburg bid with the county and Russellville bids on its own. By adding more customers together in one agreement, it makes the rates competitive. Plus the county wants to see all those who receive trash pickup services to get curbside recycling as well.

Scott Waste Service said if they were awarded the bid, they would offer the curbside recycling to everyone of its customers right away, even though the agreement is slated to begin April 1, 2015.

The bid received held two sets of costs, one if the county chose to accept the bid starting immediately and one if the county waited until 2015. The later being a tad bit more.

Each city had to agree to enter into an interlocal agreement with the county to proceed with this plan. They all agreed and the state passed the agreement last month. A committee was put together with representatives from each city, along with Judge Executive Logan Chick to assure each entity would get what they had been receiving in their current agreements. Chick reported that nothing has changed other than adding recycling and accounting for the closure of the landfill in 2015.

In the contract agreement it specifies that the local landfill will close in 2015, and as such, Logan County would lose a great deal of benefits including two free dump days a month. The county has said the future contractor would have to provide, at no charge, comparable services to substitute for the loss of services. Scott answered that need in the bid.

Details of costs of both residential and commercial services will be reported after the next meeting of fiscal court.